A Day in the Life: Organization

As an Elementary Art Teacher you will have a lot of students. That's an understatement. I have roughly 550 students and teach twenty-one classes over the course of the week. It's. a. lot. That's why you absolutely have to be organized!


I cannot stress organization enough. Let's just say that David is extremely proud of my OCD-like tendencies in the art classroom. I have folders for every class and inside of those folders I have smaller folders for each of the tables. In my classroom I have four different tables all labeled with a color, so the smaller folders are color labeled. Those large folders go inside of cabinets labeled with the days of the week. Here's a panorama of the back of my classroom with those lower cabinets labeled.

Panorama: back of the classroom.

There are labels on the lower cabinets coordinating with each day of the week.

 On the upper cabinets I have laminated color-coded sheets labeled with the grade levels Kindergarten to Sixth Grade. On these sheets I put up examples of the current projects we are completing, so students know what to look ahead towards and I can also remember what in the world we are doing in each class as well.

Students should also be aware of their art grade. Instead of students wondering what an A, B or C means, I made a poster for students to see daily. There is a visual representation as well as verbal to explain what each grade means.

You can also see the binders I have on the bottom shelf. Let me just say that you will buy a bagillion binders as a first year teacher just to keep organized. I have binders for the different media used throughout our curriculum, so inside are handouts, helpful worksheets and examples pertaining to the specific media.

No matter what you do to get organized, its super important you make your room "home-y". Add a lamp, an area rug, pictures of loved ones, pillows, postcards, a coffee maker, etc. As a first year teacher, I've found out that most of my time is spent at school, so make sure you make it comfortable!

Any ideas about keeping organized, no matter if your a teacher or not? How do you keep everything at home organized?